When I am Queen
by forwarduntovictory
Summary: "Rest now dear snowflake, the time's come to fall into darkness and shadow. The troops will marshal, the blood will flow and your tears will freeze upon the frozen throe of war's decree. Never more shall you wake."


**Authors Note: **_This is an AU story. There will be no definite pairings or Outlaw/Swan Queen. It will start after the sleeping curse but go off canon from there on. There will be violence and crude references to torture, gore and abuse, sexual, mental and emotional._

Disclaimer_: I do not own Once Upon A Time._

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**Prologue:**

**The Enchanted Forest, 28 Years Ago**

Brown eyes as rich as honey opened with a slowness that came only from the deepest of exhaustion. Raven hair casually spilled across silver pillows as she slowly came to, breathing lowly and wholly as the cold winter breeze swept through the room. She barely heard the ruffle of curtains blowing in the wind or the footsteps of the men and women working outside the closed bedroom door. She attempted to move into a sitting position but found that a sharp, agonizing pain in her chest kept her docile against the soft sea of pillows and blankets. A few, ragged breaths kept her from attempting anything.

A shaking hand tenderly touched her aching chest, feeling the thick bandages that kept her chest bound and heavy. There was a mild wetness to the clothes and it didn't take a genius to know that she was still bleeding underneath the rags. However, they did not smell of old blood, meaning someone had changed them. She briefly pondered who it could be as she silently watched the redness begin to bloom in tiny amounts across her chest.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Regina." announced a voice to her right.

She snapped her head to the balcony to find the source and nearly grimaced when she recognized the source as the Dragon, Maleficent.

"The servants would be mad if they learned you were trying to sabotage their work."

The elder witch, beautiful and stunning even in her late five hundreds, strode across the room to the bed. Unlike Regina, she was dressed in an emperor's blue dress with heavy makeup that accented her feral blue eyes. Every time she moved, the light caught the dress' sapphires that were woven into the material and sparkled tiny, blue and white dots on the ground and walls. Regina—she thought best not to tell her friend that she nearly couldn't remember her own name initially—wearily watched and waited until Maleficent was nearly at the end of the bed before speaking.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice crackling from lack of use. Her lips were parched and she found it difficult to swallow.

It was Maleficent's turn to grimace. "You took an arrow to the chest courtesy of your beloved step-daughter and the thief, Robin of Locksley. If you had not been on your way here, you wouldn't have survived."

Regina vaguely remembered.

The sleeping curse hadn't worked as she had hoped, deceived by all of the things, true love's kiss. Ironic really. The plan had been fool proof up until the fake prince had gotten in the way. After finding out, she recalled planning a trip to retrieve the curse Rumplestiltskin had given her before she had traded it for the sleeping curse. She barely remembered the carriage ride. It had been boring. All she knew was a tree had fallen in the center of the road and after getting out to remove it, a sudden pain had sent her crashing onto the ground and spiraling into unbelievable agony. She painfully remembered the arrow sticking out of her chest and blood trickling down her breasts. It had been warm and wet. It had coated her fingers when she struggled to pull it out. The tip had been dripping with her blood before she had thrown it down only to watch as her men took arrow after arrow. The last thing Regina remembered was falling onto the ground in agony.

With a grin, Regina struggled to get upright.

"Looks like Snow White isn't as innocent as everyone likes to think."

Assassination was a coward's way. Once the precious citizens of her kingdom knew exactly what she attempted, they wouldn't think of their princess as high and mighty as she thought herself to be.

"And where do you think you're going?" Maleficent arched a single, golden eyebrow. "The wound still needs more stitches and the poison isn't fully out of your system. I will not have you passing out again on my floor. Or bleeding to death."

"I need to—" Regina started, struggling to remain upright without passing out from the dizziness that followed her.

"You need to sleep. Snow White isn't going anywhere. Not when she thinks you're dead as a doorknob, which you will be if you don't lay back down this instance. I will not hesitate to drug you if you continue to act like an eristic child." snapped Maleficent.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you actually cared about me, Mal." coughed Regina, reluctantly following her friend's advice. Not in fear that she would actually knock her out but that she would pass out of her own involuntary action. "She thinks I'm dead?"

Maleficent nodded. "The entire kingdom does. Your carriage returned empty and bloody with your men dead. The little princess has taken your throne, too. It's the talk of the entire realm. The Evil Queen dead. There's been celebrations everywhere for days at end."

She snorted.

"The fools even began treading into my land thinking that they could kill me now that the Evil Queen is dead. Poor fools. They make me laugh."

_Of course,_ Regina thought bitterly, _they already celebrate my death._

"How long was I out?"

"Two weeks. You kept opening the stitches when you woke up screaming. Next time you do that, I will permanently sow your mouth shut. It's hard to think when someone's screaming loud enough to bring the castle down around your head." answered the witch. "You scared my bloody unicorn half to death, too. Two bloody weeks of trying to get him to calm down."

If what she was saying was true, about how long she was out, then the chances of getting rid of the little miscreant were diminishing at incredibly large rates. It had been easy to get rid of Leopold. The bastard had made it too easy. It had taken only one bite from an Agrabahn viper whose poison was enough to kill a man with one drop.

She suddenly laughed.

"That little miscreant." She did not know if it was the poison or the sudden hunger, but she continued to laugh.

Snow White had tried to kill her with the same poison she had used to kill the girl's father. Poetic justice, some might call it. Regina liked to think of it as evidence that even the purest hearts could not remain unadulterated forever. Rather, with time and the right influence, they would grow as dark as the night sky. After all, evil is not born, it is created.

"She poisoned me with venom from an Agrabahn viper." Regina explained, touching the spot where the venom had spread like wildfire. "No wonder she didn't check to see if I was dead. That little miscreant."

"Yes, well, you're not. So stop talking and sleep." commanded Maleficent. She looked ready to knock her out but made no move.

Abruptly, Regina scowled.

"How." Regina demanded. Her voice left little room for it to be a question.

She knew the amount of poison that was needed to kill someone with Agrabahn venom. The arrow tip was more than covered in it. It should have killed her immediately. There was no chance of survival. She should be dead. Dead. Dead like Daniel... with Daniel.

Maleficent seemed suddenly uncomfortable. The untouchable Dragon, the beast that had terrorized the realm for a good four centuries now had gone silent as her reptilian eyes looked away from her warm, honey brown eyes. They were by no means the best of friends. Hell, they had tried to kill each other more times than they actually sat down and talked. Well, Maleficent was the one who sat. Whenever they met it was always at Maleficent's castle. There were far too many people trying to slay the Dragon for it to be a good idea for her to visit Regina. However, in all the times that she met her, Maleficent had never been the one to hide secrets. Secrets have done more harm than good for the both of them.

"I wasn't the first to come across you." she replied slowly and truthfully, moving to the fireplace.

The orange flames did little to guard Regina from the cold. For long moments, silence reigned supreme as the blonde haired witch watched the crackling fire greedily devour the logs, untouched by the morning chill. The Dragon sighed.

"Someone else had gotten to you first. They had taken out the majority of the poison that was in your system and cleaned your wound just enough for me to find you some hours later."

Regina could not recall seeing anyone out on the roads other than her and her guard. No one would have reached her in time either. The mysterious addition of Robin of Locksley, who should have been terrorizing Sherwood Forest was another factor she could not piece together. He would have not helped the _Evil Queen_. Rumplestiltskin was out of the picture. Agrabahn venom was one thing he had no knowledge on. It had been the Genie, a being far older than both Maleficent and the Dark One, that had brought the viper and knew its secrets. Secrets that not even he would share.

She paled at the abhorrent thought of necromancy being the reason why she was alive. She refused to be bound to anyone again. Her will was her own.

"Who?"

Maleficent dourly frowned. Even in the cold, morning lighr, her face darkened considerably.

"The Sorcerer."

"That's impossible." Regina frowned in turn. "There's no magic in the entire realm that can bring back a person with their soul intact." The Sorcerer of all people wouldn't try and save her.

"It was him." Maleficent groped the mantle above the fireplace and turned to face Regina. In between two fingers, the arrow that had pierced her was held up for her to see. The cold metal gleamed and it took a moment to recognize the thin coating as the poison.

It did not prove that The Sorcerer was the one to save her but the pain in her chest recognized the arrowhead. Her heart pounded just a little faster and Regina forced herself to give nothing away. Regina's flickered back to Maleficent.

"Does anyone else know?" She licked her lips.

"No. Not even Rumplestiltskin with his sight can see such a power. This is the work of something far more than us pawns, Regina." the Dragon answered. A far away look clouded her azure eyes before focusing once more on the still Queen. "You want the curse Rumplestiltskin gave you, no?"

"Yes."

The elder witch smiled. "I'll give it to you. On one condition."

Something coiled in the pit of her stomach at the thought of getting the curse. It made her palms sweat and the arrow wound to tingle with discomfort. Yet, she smirked nevertheless.

"And what would that be, Mal? Aurora and Prince Phillip's head?" she cautiously asked.

The curse was her only option now. If The Sorcerer was the one who saved her, she needed to enact the curse before it was too late.

"No, you will take me with you. He left you for me to find for a reason. I do not wish to stick around long enough to find out what that reason is." Maleficent carefully explained, looking older in that moment than she had ever. "I will not let my race die because you were stupid enough to get shot."

"Deal."

Satisfied with her answer, the dark fairy nodded and looked to the sun. Its warm rays did not dare touch the castle.

"Oh, Regina?"

Regina arched an eyebrow. "Yes, dearie?"

"The next time you scare my unicorn, I will leave you to die on the side of the road." said Maleficent. "Now go to sleep already."

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_To be continued..._


End file.
